My experiences of teaching biology in Mulbadaw Secondary School and adventures throughout Tanzania.

Saturday, 10 December 2011

“And I’ll find strength in pain”

Song of the week: The Cave – Mumford and Sons Today was our first full day in Dar. And it was amazing. I haven’t written in a while so lets do a brief catch up. I finished teaching. I had Thanksgiving in Katesh. I went to IST (inservice training) in Morogoro for a week and a half and it was wonderful (seeing people, not the actual training…that was pretty stupid). Yesterday we left Moro for Dar (the capital of Tanzania and biggest city aka most – America like city). Got in about 2:30, got some food and a checked into our rooms. In the midst of hanging out I felt so tired that I just went to bed (at like 8pm) and didn’t wake up until 8am. It was amazing. After a yummy breakfast of egg sandwiches, we headed to a crafts fair (called Makutano) on the peninsula (which is like the richer area in Dar). I needed some allergy meds so I stopped at the PC office and met with the Dr. real quick. While waiting for the dala to pass by afterwards, I was chilling by a little duka and started chatting with the lady there. They were eating papaya and offered me some so I ate a slice while waiting and we chatted about sharobaros and Tanzania. After I caught a dala, I got off at the Black tomato, the venue of the fair. It was 3,000Tsh cover to enter but had really wonderful upper class jewelry, paintings, clothes and miscellaneous things. I bought a few things on the cheaper side for presents before we headed out to Slipway, the outdoor mall on the very end of the peninsula, for food. It is also pricey pricey but nice and there’s an almost legit grocery store there. We loaded up on juice, cookies and mini warmed up pizzas before getting soft serve ice cream (in actual big cones!) and then browsing another crafts section. I chatted with this sweet old man who paints these little drawings daily and showed me how he did it. It was really cool. I can’t wait to show my parents all the cool things that you can see and buy here. We headed back towards Posta (downtown) and the hotel for a quick rest before peacing for the football game. I had literally a piece of paper with 3 things written on it (the name of the dala we needed to take, and the word for soccer stadium in Kiswahili) as we walked out the door of the hotel/hostel. We just asked around at the standi and on the dala and made it a half an hour later outside the stadium. I started chatting with a guy from Rwanda as we were entering and he showed us the entrance. We weren’t really sure how much it cost and had heard that it started at 4:00pm. The guy thought that it started then too but somehow it got moved to 3:30 because they were halfway through when we walked in. Even better, since it was the Tusker Cup and Tanzania lost in the Semi-finals, only Uganda and Rwanda were playing and basically the stadium was like a 1/12th full. It was sooo empty and because like no one was there, the match was free. We walked straight through the gate and up the steps. Some security guards tried to stop us and say that we had to pay to enter, but the Rwandan that I was with told me just to pass and that it really was free. The guards were just trying to milk some white people for a bit of cash. But we continued after like a minute of they pestering us and found seats like 6 rows up from the field. The game was 0-0 and it was at 40 min when we sat down. Before the end of the game, each team scored 2 goals, bringing it to extra time, where no one scored. Then it came to PK’s. It was so exciting. The actual soccer being played was college level at best but it was still exciting b/c the stadium was pretty evenly divided on who wanted who to win and the PK’s were really intense. I was cheering for Rwanda b/c of my newest friend but the other half of us wanted Uganda. Each team made 2 and missed 2 for the PK’s so it came down to the last shots. Uganda made theirs and Rwanda missed. Oh boy it was so great to be there in the stadium, under the lights, sitting on the edge of our seats as they shot. I loved it. This was the whole reason that we originally came to Dar so I’m glad that it actually happened. After the game, we headed back to Posta and went to one of the 2 Subways in Dar. Yep. Real live subway. The only real American chain that you can find here. I got a veggie footlong and it was DELISH! So wonderfully tasty with crisp veggies. I’d forgotten what that was like. Now, we are relaxing before going to Hookah on the rooftop of the Holiday Inn here. Sounds like the perfect end to a great day : )